


Many Returns

by DangerFloof



Series: A Two Parent, Two Bottles of Wine a Night Job [8]
Category: Bob's Burgers (Cartoon)
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, Complete, Confessions, Drinking, Explicit Language, F/M, Illegal Activities, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Teenagers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Underage Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-10-30 01:56:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20806610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangerFloof/pseuds/DangerFloof
Summary: Zeke is in town to celebrate Louise's seventeenth birthday.  Each gives the other an unexpected gift.





	Many Returns

“Can I open my eyes _now_?”

“Wait a minute, babygirl I—“ Zeke’s thick fingers fumble at the base of her neck as he works the latch of a necklace. “Damn it…tiny-ass clasp—_there_!”

Louise reaches up and touches the cool metal around her neck. She frowns, slightly confused; it feels like some sort of modern art thing resting on her collarbones.

“Well, go on, open yer eyes.” He’s impatient for her to look in the mirror and see what he bought her. Zeke spent more than he intended—there are _much_ cheaper versions of this design out there—but he needed to make up for not being in town on her actual birthday. Besides, he gets a kick out of treating her to the sort of little shiny things ladies like: what’s the point of working so hard if he doesn’t spend some of it providing for his girl? He's always liked gifting things to women, he enjoys the way it makes them take on over him. As a child, he loved making macaroni art for Grandma June, or presenting her with fistfuls of dandelions. (His middle school "love weeds" business wasn't a sudden idea.) Later, he saved up his pocket money and gave Cheryl, the best of all his stepmothers, the one he genuinely loved and regretted loosing, earrings from Walmart, or, if he were particularly flush, gift sets from Marshall's. He probably could have gone to culinary school a year earlier had he not discovered that you could actually buy strippers presents from their wish lists. Zeke especially enjoyed that; it made him feel like such a big man, splashing cash out on pretty dancers at the club, he loved the way they’d squeal and kiss his cheeks, model the heels or bodystockings or whatever in a private show for him. God, he was a grade-A sucker, back in the day! But buying presents for Louise, his own odd, tough, beautiful woman, is the best of all; he especially loves the idea of showering her with jewels, so much so he almost resents that her parents bought her that little diamond nose stud before he could do it.

Her eyes still shut, she frowns at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Are you _sure_? I mean, don’t you want to milk more drama from _the big reveal_?”

“Well honey, if you don’t wanna see what I gotcha…”

Louise opens her eyes. Standing behind her, Zeke meets her gaze in the mirror and grins, his eyes, slightly glassy from his third beer, sparkling with laughter. Louise watches herself reach up and touch the delicate gold chain. Zeke spent serious bank on this one. Settled against her collarbones is a series of gold hexagons with little gold balls at each junction, and the cluster trails off into a jagged tail. She recognizes it as a molecule of some sort. Louise squints for a moment, realizes what it is, and begins laughing.

“You’ll haveta hide it from yer parents.” He kisses her shoulder.

“Eh, they’re too square to catch on,” she replies confidently. She can’t stop touching it; it’s the THC molecule.

“So ya like it then?”

“It’s alright,” she turns to kiss him.

Zeke wraps his arms around her and deepens the kiss. Soon Louise is pressed against the sink as he grinds against her. Panting, he breaks free of her lips and begins to nibble his way down her neck.

“More?” Louise gasps softly as she runs her hands up under his shirt, enjoying the feel of his hairy abs trembling at her touch.

“Always,” he murmurs against her throat. “I gotta make up fer lost time.”

“I’ll say.”

Zeke chuckles as he pulls away to tear his t-shirt over his head. They’re in the little bathroom of the basement he rents from his cousin when he’s in town. “Now babygirl, ya can’t blame me _too_ much fer missin’ yer actual birthday. I was on Fischoeder business, and I brought home a story fer ya. Ya seemed to like it.”

Pure, animal want blazes in her eyes, and Zeke reaches up, showing her his bruised knuckles. He rubs them gently against her cheek, watching with satisfaction as she leans into his hand.

Of course, he can’t tell her everything that happened—she’s not an Associate yet, and even if she were, it would still be too dangerous. But he can discuss generalities, and he never lets the exact truth get in the way of a good story. Okay, so he didn’t go collect protection money alone; they typically operate in units of three to five, and Zeke always takes one of the “goon” roles, cracks his leather glove-covered knuckles, looks intimidating, while the “mouthpiece,” a smaller, smarter guy, explains what’s what. He usually doesn’t even have to beat people, finding that the threat of violence is often enough for folks to magically find funds to pay their debts to the Fischoeders. Contrary to what he told her, those bruises are actually from punching a hole in the wall near the guy’s head, while his partner held the idiot up off the ground.

A little high, a little drunk, Zeke begins pulling at Louise’s t-shirt, glad she didn’t bother putting her bra back on after their first round that morning. He hopes there aren’t any panties under her leggings, either; they’ll just slow him down. He’s gonna bend her over the sink and whisper the most violent shit he can think of in her ear as he takes her, watch her face in the mirror as she falls apart.

“Happy seventeenth birthday, sweetheart.” He tosses her t-shirt behind him.

“Wish it were my eigh-eighteenth,” she gasps as he leans over and latches onto a nipple with his lips.

“Me too,” his voice is muffled against her breast. She’s _technically_ legal now, as the age of consent in New Jersey is 16, but won’t be truly free until she reaches her majority. He looks up at her, pinches her nipples hard with his fingers, delighting in her moan. “Got me a barely legal.”

“So that’s why you’re with me, you pervert,” she laughs, her long fingers working on the button and zipper of his jeans. “The second I turn eighteen you’ll turn me in for a younger model.”

Zeke grabs the back of her head and kisses her roughly. He pulls back and boops her nose with his. “Don’t be crazy, darlin’.” His expression is dopey, love-drunk as he takes in the face of the girl he adores. “I’ll love ya just as much when yer old an’ grey as I do now.”

Louise freezes, her dark eyes wide. Zeke’s brain finally catches up with his mouth and he stares back, slack-jawed, as they process what he just said.

* * * * *

Zeke planned to confess his feelings after she turned eighteen, when she would have the indisputable freedom to return them. He’s never loved a woman before, so he was unsure about the details of how to tell her. He knew he should make it romantic, maybe during a nighttime walk on the beach—ladies love shit like that, even badasses like Louise. Flowers, he was certain, should definitely be involved somewhere.

What he absolutely did _not_ intend to do was blurt it out while she was just barely seventeen, both of them half-naked in the bathroom, him with a raging boner and flying high on Tangerine Kush and Bud Light.

“Aw fuck, I didn’t mean to say that,” he mutters.

Louise’s brows rush down over her nose. “_No!_ No, you do _not_ get to tell me you love me then demand backsies!”

She pushes past him, grabbing her t-shirt off the floor as she storms out of the bathroom. Rage and hurt—so much hurt, she’s never been so hurt in her life, it’s only the rage keeping her from crying—pounds in her veins as she searches for her shoes, cussing at the top of her voice. Zeke trails after her, calling her name, pleading with her to listen to him, but she’s having none of it, and soon she can hear herself raving incoherently right back at him.

Zeke begins to panic. He hasn’t seen her throw a conniption fit like this since last winter, when she thought he was coming on to her sister. Well, shit, he doesn’t want to pin her down again; a man can do that just so many times before he looses any right to call himself a gentleman, and besides, last time he was trying to stop her from slapping him. _Damn it_, why couldn't he keep his mouth shut and leave well enough alone? And _fuck_, he thought she was past this destructive, rage-first-and-ask-questions-later phase! He hopes that, wherever she is, Grandma June understands what he’s about to do.

Zeke flexes and steps deep into her personal space. Nose-to-nose (or as close as he can get, given that she’s almost four inches taller), he bellows in his deepest, most commanding voice, “_Hush, woman!_”

To their mutual surprise, she does.

* * * * *

Their “weekends” quickly settled into a pleasant routine. Zeke finishes his workweek with the worst shift of all, the dreaded clopen, closing Saturday night and opening Sunday morning, and is typically on the road heading back south to Seymore’s Bay by four in the afternoon. He stops at Critter and Mudflap’s for dinner, Fischoeder business, and conversation, then ends the day in cousin Leslie’s basement, texting or talking to Louise until he hits the hay. It's usually not very long--he's pretty exhausted by that point.

Monday—their Saturday—starts with exercise. Zeke picks her up at dawn for a run or, more often than not, weightlifting at the community center. Bob raised his eyebrows at that one, but Linda was glad their daughter had company; she never liked Louise out by herself that early. Bob’s mind was eased when neighbors began to casually comment that they saw the twosome out and about.

“I’m glad you found a good guard dog for her, Lin,” Teddy said over his usual burger, having noted that he spotted them jogging in the park. “Nobody’ll harass her with _him_ around.”

“Yeah,” Mort added with a dark chuckle. “She has her own personal goon, there.”

A few weeks later, Mike the mailman told the Belchers that he talked to them at the gym, while Zeke spotted for Louise at the bench press.

“She was mad that they wouldn’t let the two of them spar in the ring, because he’s an adult and she’s a minor,” he shrugged.

Bob grunted.

“I wouldn’t like it anyway,” Linda frowned. The idea of any man taking a swing at her daughter, under any circumstances, made her blood pressure rise.

After working out, they go back to Zeke’s basement apartment for food, showers, and sex—not necessarily in that order. Sometimes that’s how they spend the entire day, throwing in a nap or two, plenty of weed, and some video games or movies for good measure. Zeke revels in those days, just the two of them casually hanging out—it’s a taste of the life he hopes to enjoy with her once she’s a legal adult. Though she never says as much, Louise finds herself thinking on similar lines.

Other days, afterwards, they meet with friends on the Warf. Often Jimmy Junior, whom Louise begrudgingly tolerates for Zeke’s sake, though she still resents the way Jimmy treated her sister: occasionally Jocelyn or Darrel join in—even the Pesto twins, to Zeke’s irritation—a rotation of old friends hanging out, like when they were kids, but better.

The next day is their Sunday. They spend the morning apart; Zeke hangs out with his father in the smoke shop, runs errands, visits other friends, while Louise takes care of her own business, much of which consists of working through the restaurant’s bookkeeping.

_One day, leaning against Zeke’s bare shoulder, idly watching one of _The Fast and Furious_ movies with him through a haze of smoke, she turned to Zeke and said, “I gotta hand it to the old lady.”_

_ “Hum?” Not as squanchy as Louise, but pleasantly buzzed on beer, he turned droopy-lidded eyes to her._

_ She snickered. “God, you’re so drunk.”_

_ “Drunk on you,” he muttered, nuzzling her hair._

_ “Ugh, seriously.” Louise pushed herself upright. “Mom. I gotta hand it to her.”_

_ “Fer what?”_

_ “Keeping the restaurant going all these years. Practically no income, no accounting training whatsoever—I mean, her system is a wreck—but somehow, it worked.”_

Later in the afternoon, Louise makes an excuse to leave home, and she and Zeke spend the evening saying a long good-bye to each other, before he heads back north the next morning. She won’t admit it aloud, but she knows he’s right; they probably get as much quality time this way as they would if he spent the whole summer in town. Louise longs for the day when they can spend as much time as they please, as openly as they please together, but she knows this is the best she can hope for right now.

* * * * *

_ "Hush, woman!"_

Louise cringes, stumbles back, smacks up against the wall. She's always known this side of him exists—she saw a flash of it last summer, on the ride home from her first time jell-o wrestling—but she’s never seen it full-force. The laughing, twinkling hazel eyes she knows so well are brown, flat, like a shark’s; her training, her strength, won’t mean shit if he chooses to unleash on her. This is the Zeke the Enforcer, who kicks ass, who helped kill a man, on Mr. Fischoeder’s orders.

Zeke works his jaw. The quiet calm of his voice frightens her more than yelling ever could. “I ain’t askin’ fer _backsies_, I just didn’t mean to say it now, like this. I wanted it to be _romantic_,” he spits out the last word. “Fuck, I love you, why do ya gotta be so damn difficult about it?”

Louise barks a short, shaky laugh. “Are you new here?” She lifts her chin, pushing down her fear, putting on a show of bravado she’s far from feeling. “Step back.”

Admiration and something predatory gleams in his eyes as he takes a step forward. Yeah, she’s difficult, but apparently he _likes_ difficult women. “I love you, Louise.”

The air is thick between them, and her head spins with the cocktail of fear and lust. “How can I believe that when you aren’t balls-deep inside of me?”

Zeke captures her in his arms, and she struggles. They both know this game; Louise runs, fights, but only because she wants to be caught and overwhelmed. Zeke picks her up and throws her on the bed, and Louise gets her wish, words of love mix with acts of lust, binding them in ways and on levels neither could have foreseen.

* * * * *

Louise sits up in bed clutching the sheet to her chest, a dreamy smile playing on her lips. The bathroom door opens, and Zeke exits, bare of foot and chest, buckling his jeans into place. He takes her in with long admiring look, from her wild hair down to her unusually long toes peeping out from the sheet.

“Damn,” he grunts quietly. “I’m one fortunate S.O.B.”

“You are,” she agrees.

He leans over and strokes her cheek. “Love you.”

“Yeah, you too.” Louise plays with the frayed edge of the old blanket. “You don’t expect me to say it all the time, do you? I’m not that type.”

Zeke sits on the bed and takes her big hand in his. “I know, baby.” He leans over and pecks her lips, boops her nose gently with his. “I don’t expect ya to say it any more’n ya wanna.”

She relaxes. How lucky is she, to love and be loved by a man who understands her so well, who accepts and appreciates her for who she is! “If you _really_ love me you’ll order in some fried chicken. I’m starving!”

Zeke laughs and picks up his phone. “You got it. How about Lucky Mother Clucker’s? They got them fried pickles ya like.”

“I can’t tell if I like them or not!” she protests, as though he hasn’t seen her eat most of an entire order by herself.

He watches as she rises out of bed, stretches, and, blushing under his gaze, grabs her clothes and hurries to the bathroom. Zeke opens the DoorDash app, but it’s hard to focus, remembering the sight, the sound of her pinned beneath him, half-sobbing, half-screaming her love for him as she came.

For her part, Louise freshens up, tosses her obstinate hair into a ponytail, and dresses. She admires her reflection in the mirror, turning her head this way and that, noting that love has added a sparkle in her eyes and a blush to her cheeks that she’s never seen before. _Less than 348 days and I’ll be a free woman_. She can’t wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Next story takes place the following November, and is called "Consequences". I expect it to be up within the next 2-4 weeks. See you then!


End file.
